Skubick's Capitol: Parallels between Obama and Snyder

April 13, 2012

Let’s test your political savvy.

Read the following and decide whom the author is describing. Here you go:

“He rarely punches back as hard as he could ... he has denounced the partisan bickering ... he is a consensus seeker and at his core is a search for common ground. He’s not a super-partisan person. He’s not in it for the fight. He doesn’t wake up every day thinking ‘how am I going to defeat the other party.’”

Cue the music from “Jeopardy!” and then your answer please.

If you know anything about him since he’s been in office, you readily conclude it is, of course, Gov. Rick Snyder.

Actually, it is not. It’s Barack Obama.

All those descriptive phrases are lifted out of the new book, ”Showdown,” written by David Corn, and as incongruent as it may seem, the similarities between the president of the United States and the governor of Michigan are striking.

Now you could never call them “soul brothers” but their brand of politics in many regards is just like identical twins.

Take the “rarely punches back” observation regarding Obama. Those around him often complain he needs to be more aggressive about taking on the Republicans.

Even if you fed him a mean pill, you won’t find Snyder blasting this side or that side even though he, himself, has been blasted every which way.

When the mayor of Detroit recently labeled Mr. Snyder ”disingenuous,” the governor did not respond in kind.

Instead, he mildly observed it was “unfortunate” that the Mayor Dave Bing got “personal.”

Right along those lines is the “he’s not in it for a fight.” Unlike former Gov. John Engler, who thrived on the battle, Snyder does not. Heck, he doesn’t swear and the first thing on his mind is not to get even.

And while those around the president have urged him to be more combative, the governor has surrounded himself with aides who are just like him. Everyone in his inner circle is drinking the “Relentless Positive Action” Kool-Aid, so there is no one whispering in his ear to blast the Democrats, the recall folks, the unions or whomever. It is not as if the opportunity has not been there.

Several months into office, Gov. Snyder watched the circus across the pond in Wisconsin. There, Gov. Scott Walker was fighting and waking up every day pondering how he could bash the unions that were bashing him.

Correspondents here tried to goad Mr. Snyder into doing the same thing. He quietly noted he was not Scott Walker and then proceeded to prove it. Interestingly, Mr. Walker became the target of a real recall effort, while the one against Mr. Snyder died on the vine, although a second fruitless effort is now under way.

The fact is, unlike his counterpart in the Dairy State where the passion against Walker was off the charts, Mr. Snyder did not contribute to the “hatred” with his rhetoric. When it comes to “super-partisanship,” the governor and president are two peas in a pod. One of Mr. Snyder’s favorite phrases is “This is not about R’s and D’s.”

Unfortunately for him, everyone else in this town frames the debate in those terms, but he does not, at least not at the philosophical level.

On the practical level, however, most of his time in office has been about the “R’s” because he has a lousy record of bringing the “D’s” into his fold. All of his major programs, including the senior pension tax, the cuts to education and the emergency manager law were passed without Democratic support.

Democrats have reached out, and the governor says he wants to do it, but to date, the bipartisanship he campaigned on has simply been a campaign slogan.

To underscore this comparison between Mr. Obama and Mr. Snyder, the guys in the White House have privately said they think Mr. Snyder is a pretty good guy and someone they can work with. And, they have.

While it is the norm for the governor of this state to oppose the president of the opposite party, think Jennifer Granholm blaming President Bush for the state’s lousy economy, Gov. Rick Snyder won’t go there either.

Sure he wants to see Mitt Romney in the White House, but this governor won’t do any “Obama bashing” to help Romney get there.

— Tim Skubick is the longest serving member of the State Capitol Press Corps with 42 years of covering Michigan government and politics.